Marnie Halpern, PhD

A native of Canada, Marnie Halpern received a B.Sc. in biology from McMaster University and a M.Sc. at the McMaster University Medical Center, working on gene regulation of Herpes virus. She obtained her Ph.D. from Yale University, where she characterized the neuromuscular system of Drosophila.  In post-doctoral work at the Institute of Neuroscience at the University of Oregon she identified some of the first mutations that affect early development of the zebrafish. For 26 years, Dr. Halpern was a staff member at the Carnegie Institution for Science Department of Embryology and Adjunct Professor at the Johns Hopkins University. In 2020, she was appointed Chair of the Molecular and Systems Biology Department at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth and in 2021 was named the Andrew Thomson, Jr., MD 1946 Professor. Her laboratory currently works on left-right differences in the zebrafish brain and methods to identify and modulate neural circuits. Dr. Halpern was recognized as a Pew Scholar, received the Mossman Developmental Biologist Award from the American Association of Anatomists, and is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She has served on the board of directors for the Society for Developmental Biology and Genetics Society of America and on committees for the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology and Society for Neuroscience.